Google Maps Is Testing a Radical Redesign – Screenshots

Google may be getting ready to unveil the new design at Google I/O next week

Google is working on a radical redesign of the web-based Google Maps, perhaps the biggest to date. The new design is in testing with some users and has been spotted in the wild.

Right off the bat, it's easy to notice that the new UI takes quite a bit of cues from the mobile app version, particularly the Android app.

The biggest change is the removal of the sidebar in favor of several panels that pop up on top of the map layer and show what information is relevant in the context, search results, and places information.

The map itself is getting a revamp with new colors, new icons, and so on. It's very likely that it will be based on the MapsGL experiment that Google has been running for months now, though it relies on WebGL which isn't supported by all devices.

With Google I/O only a week away, the speculation is that the new Google Maps will be unveiled during Google's developer conference.